Sunday Evening Video: The American Dream Mall

The American Dream Mall, in New Jersey, just a few miles from New York City, is now open and it is the second-largest shopping mall in the United States.  Having mutated many times since it’s original conception, the mall is now 70% Entertainment and 30% retail. Within this mall you will find a Nickelodeon Universe theme park, a Dreamworks Animation water park, and an indoor year-round skiing faclility.

There’s a ridiculous amount of stuff here, a Legoland, an aqaurium, a bowling alley, a multiplex cinema, an ice-skating rink, over 100 places to eat and 450 retail stores.

The video above is just over an hour, and it’s popular YouTuber, Action Kid, just walking through the mall showing what he can find on his first trip there, while providing an amusing running commentary. He just shot this in late January, so it’s very current.

Normally, this is not the sort of thing I’d post here in PopCult unless I shot the video myself but there is something besides the excessive consumerism that is particularly delightful about The American Dream Mall. The walls are covered with a  wide variety of surrealist, geometric and abstract art. We’re talking about murals that are maybe 20 feet high and 80 feet long in places. There’s even a bizarre topiary garden in one area of the mall, with sculpted plants residing in planters that look like human heads with multiple features and giant disembodied hands. Another area has a secret garden filled with strange gnomes and mushrooms. This mall may well be the largest installation of surreal art in the world.

Seriously, I don’t advocate drug use, but if there was ever a place to go when you’ve dropped acid, this is it.

Action Kid’s video shows off a lot of this stuff as he’s walking around, and it’s a real kick.  Mrs. PopCulteer and I are seriously considering a trip to this place later this year. Aside from all the cool SpongeBob stuff, there’s a brand-new two-story Toys R Us and a three-story It’s Sugar there.